History/2020/Paige's Struggle For Abstinence
Paige, upon moving to Venus Island, gradually waned herself away from alcoholism, distracting herself from the urge to drink by replacing the reliance with one of pornography and autoeroticism. While Paige's only priority at that point was to not be an alcoholic anymore, this caused her to be essentially blind to the addiction to pornography and autoeroticism that eventually developed. She would spend increasing amounts of hours in the evening and into the night searching for, looking at, watching, and engaging in autoeroticism to as much varieties of pornography and pornographical media as she could find. She created a "porn folder" that began on an eight-gigabyte USB drive but quickly ended up spilling onto her laptop's hard drive and taking up over one-hundred and twenty gigabytes of space. She falsely believed that her "talent" of being able to go for multiple rounds each night, as it were, would lead to inevitable success in the pornographical industry. This effort of escaping alcoholism had turned into an effective replacement for alcoholism that, by January of 2020, was severely cutting into Paige's sleep schedule, causing her some physical pain, and even causing distance between her and her friends as she became more and more "dirty-minded" - she would regularly bring up the topic of sex, make dirty jokes and sexual innuendos, and even went so far as to ask other islanders if they wanted to join her in her webcam modelling streams. Eventually, this all culminated on the tenth of January, 2020, when Madeleine decided to sit down and talk with her about it. In this conversation, Madeleine manages to strip Paige of her usual eccentric demeanour and force her to come to terms with her problems - reluctantly, Paige admitted that Madeleine was right. She confessed that she had been thinking about it ever since registering for the streaming service, and that autoeroticism had begun to feel like a task that she had to do rather than something she enjoyed. The Journey Begins The two reached an agreement; Paige would make a start on removing her reliance on autoeroticism and pornography by completely deleting her "porn folder", her streaming service account, and getting rid of any sex toys and such things that she owned. In exchange, Madeleine would provide something to potentially help her in distracting herself from inevitable urges in the form of yoga and meditation at Aphrodite Beach every morning. Due to how early in the morning Madeleine visits the beach for her yoga and meditation, Paige would theoretically be forced to go to sleep earlier in the evening than she would normally do in order to wake up earlier, thus hopefully eliminating any idle desires to watch pornography or engage in autoeroticism. After announcing this to the other islanders and apologising to them if she has made them uncomfortable in the past because of her sexual behaviour, Paige then set about enlisting other islanders in providing additional help to her; she vividly remembered her struggles with alcoholism not too long ago, and wanted to have as much help as possible this time around so that she had more chance of success. Rachel took action by stripping Paige's permissions in the NSFW channel of the #VenusSquad Discord server - Paige could no longer view the channel, let alone interact with it. Next, Madeleine accompanied Paige in removing all sex toys, physical pornography, and other such things from her home - the two gathered them all up and personally threw the things in a dumpster. Taylor also stepped in, helping Paige to install not just one but several pieces of anti-pornography software on her laptop; the passwords for each of these pieces of software were kept from Paige, known only to Taylor and Rachel. The other islanders in general were instructed to help Paige out in the evenings especially by inviting her to participate in various things that would distract her from potential urges - these things could be anything from watching television together to engaging in some arts and crafts. Madeleine, similarly to how she took the position of a mentor to Natalie in 2018, opted to take the position of a mentor to Paige now; Paige actually requested this of her, asking her to hold her accountable and actually give her proper punishments if she ever failed. The First Relapse That night, after having spent the day very confident in her new plan, Paige encountered an issue that she had not properly considered - regardless of when she went to sleep, no matter how early or late, she was still going to have some idle time between going to bed and going to sleep. It was this that presented her with the largest obstacle she would have to overcome; thanks to having always engaged in autoeroticism as well as watching pornography in the evenings, her mind automatically turned its focus to the habit as soon as she set foot in her room that night. Laying in bed and trying to go to sleep was worse; she found it difficult to stop thinking about autoeroticism, and the erotic and pornographical images swirling around her mind did not help either. The urge grew too strong, and she gave in and engaged in the act five times in a row before falling asleep. Although this was generally less times than she would normally have engaged in the act, it was still five times too many; Paige woke up the next morning quite depressed, guilty, and disappointed in herself. She met up with Madeleine and confessed that she had relapsed. Although Madeleine was disappointed, she was understanding as she had not counted out the possibility of a relapse happening so soon. Madeleine did not know how she could appropriately punish Paige for her relapse, but chose instead to try and lift her spirits and provide her with some hope as she was clearly upset and disheartened. Category:History Category:Events